“You say those very words each time I visit you,” said the senator, patiently. What was that smear upon the bread? It was oily, and rancid, and the senator, who was a brave man, smiled and put a small piece in his mouth. He was also a polite man, and would have murmured something complimentary about the dinner if the bread had not suddenly nauseated him. “By Hecate, Diodorus!” he exclaimed in agitation. “Is it necessary to live like this? You are as rich as Croesus! You could cover your table with murrhine vases and fill your lamps with oil that does not make a man retch. You could have goblets glittering with gold and jewels, and the sound of lutes in the evening. You could also have a cook of some talent.”
Diodorus, whose dark face was livid from some past emotion, scowled at the senator. “I could also have couches on which to recline at my meals, and Cyprian girls to dance abominable dances and anoint your feet with balsam. I, however, am not an Urb. I am a simple soldier, and I live as a soldier.”
“What loathsome affectations,” said the senator. “Julius Caesar was also a soldier, and so was your beloved Gaius Octavius. They lived austerely in the field. When in Rome, they lived as Romans, not like base pugilists.”
Diodorus began to smile. He ate the bread with relish, and there was a black twinkle under his thick black brows. “Perhaps,” he said, “I prefer to save my money” — he ate a huge mouthful of beans — “for a dowry for my daughter, who is almost ready for marriage.”
The senator, who had no aversion for gold, and who had four sons, lost his unusual temper. “Ah,” he said, “that is a subject which interests me. The little Rubria is of a delicate constitution, yet she appears to have gained considerable health in this pleasant climate. Too, she has a beauty which is almost Oriental in its vividness.”
“Yes,” said Diodorus, thoughtfully. “I am considering sending Aurelia and the girl to Rome in the near future. There is no one of noble Roman family in Antioch who has a son worthy of her, nor of the proper age.”
“In that event,” said the senator, “it is possible that Tiberius, who is just though he has ice water in his veins, will recall you.”
“Yes,” said Diodorus. The two men sat alone in the dining hall, and as the tribune did not like the hovering presence of slaves he had a brass bell at hand with which to summon a slave when necessary. He rubbed his finger over the tracery of the bell, which was a cheap one. “I have been thinking much today.” He shot the senator a sharp glance. “I also have a headache,” he added, with what the senator thought was irrelevance.
Carvilius Ulpian was still curious about Iris, who was, he thought, beautiful enough to stir the cold Tiberius himself, and to create havoc in Rome. She was a freedwoman, yet there was no Augustale, no patrician, who would not be eager to bring her to his bed and shower upon her all the gold in his coffers. The senator daintily touched the corner of his lip with his tongue. “You will, naturally, bring all your household with you if you are recalled.”
Diodorus did not answer. His headache had not been relieved. He cursed Keptah to himself. The senator, impelled by desire and the memory of Iris, went on: “Also your bookkeeper and his family; he must be invaluable to you. Did you not mention at one time that he was the slave of your father, Priscus, and that your father was pleased with him?”
“Yes,” said Diodorus, in a dull voice. “However, Aeneas is as frugal as I, and he has saved his money. He has also bought a small olive grove not far from Antioch, which he deigns to have cultivated by two of my slaves. He has learned how to brine the olives as the Jews do, and they are fairly palatable. Moreover, he has a respectable herd of sheep, the flesh of which he sells to me and the Antioch markets. I doubt that he will be willing to return to Rome with me.”
Conversation languished. When the senator remarked that Aeneas would doubtless be loyal to his master and regard his wishes as one regards the wishes of the gods, Diodorus shook his head. “I shall not impose on his loyalty, if he has any,” he replied. “Besides, loyalty is a word with which the Greeks are not familiar.”
He would never see Iris again. He regarded her now as a terror. When he had seen her in the garden, so close, so near, as he had not seen her for years, his heart had leaped. He had had to control himself to keep from running to her and seizing her and pushing his face into her golden hair. There had been a cry in him like the cry of utter joy and anguish, mingled together. Desolation overwhelmed him.
The senator watched the open passions and despairs racing across the tribune’s vital and unsubtle features, and he smiled to himself. There had been a brooding sorrow in the young Grecian woman’s face, he recalled. Venus never had such reluctant devotees! Diodorus was a fool. Why did he not castrate himself and have done with it? The tribune glanced up involuntarily and saw the senator’s faint smile and worldly eyes, and he colored. He filled his plain goblet again and drank of the wine deeply. Then he said, “It may surprise you to know, Carvilius, that I am a virtuous husband.”
“Unfortunately, it is no surprise,” said the senator. He was a little astonished that Diodorus was so perceptive. He yawned, and this astonished him more. It was not a time to retire. And then he remembered that everyone in this barbarous household went to bed early. He reflected wretchedly that he would not be comforted in his hard bed by one of his pretty slave girls. Why had he thought that he could spend several days in this place? He would leave as soon as possible, after he had come to some agreement with Diodorus about Rubria.
Before going to bed Diodorus tramped into his wife’s quarters. Aurelia, whose red-brown cheeks showed the traces of recent tears, and whose kind eyes were pink along the edges, was permitting a pert slave girl to brush her long dark hair. She sat at a table in her night shift of white linen, and under the cloth her voluptuous figure was unmistakably matronly. When she saw Diodorus her ripe lips quivered, her eyes lighted. She restrained herself instantly, and made her face cold.
Diodorus gave a rough gesture to the slave girl, but Aurelia, for the first time since she had been married, said with uncommon sharpness, “Do not leave me, Calliope. You have not finished braiding my hair, and there are other matters.”
“Yes, Lady,” said Calliope. She had a rude, unpleasant voice that grated on the ear, a large voice for so small and shapely a girl.
Diodorus was always very vague about his household servants, and rarely noticed them. But, as he had something on his mind now, he looked closely at Calliope and said, with his usual lack of tact, “Calliope! And with that voice!”
The girl smirked and bowed her head. “Yes, Master.”
Diodorus studied her. She was evidently about seventeen or eighteen, with an impertinent and lively face, not pretty, but so animated as to give her a certain charm. She had a brisk and competent air, and her body had considerable comeliness, and her long, light brown tresses fell to her hips. Diodorus caught a bright if pale glimmer of brown under her eyelashes. He looked at her hands. She was accustomed to hard work, under the direction of her mistress. She was eminently fit for what the tribune had in mind.
“Would you like to be married?” he asked her abruptly.
“Oh, yes, Master.” She peered at him impudently from under her drooping eyelids.
“Good. I have an excellent husband for you,” he said, thus apparently concluding the matter. Again he waved her away, and this time the staring Aurelia did not countermand his order. When the girl had gone, pulling the heavy blue wool drapery over the door, Aurelia said in vexation, “I believe it is the prerogative of the mistress to arrange marriages for her slave girls and women.”
“Yes, yes,” said Diodorus, impatiently. “But this is a special occasion.”
Aurelia lifted her silver mirror and affected to be concerned over her complexion. Diodorus finally became aware that his wife was displeased with him. He said, “What have I done now?” Aurelia studied her complexion, and sighed. “It must be very bad,” Diodorus added. “But this is no time for matronly exasperations.”
Aurelia was out
raged. She slapped the mirror on her table, and the lamp fluttered. Its feeble light shone on an austere bed of no bronze decorations, and no carvings. It was of unornamented wood, and the rugs that lay on the sheet were only brown wool. “Am I given to capriciousness?” she demanded. “Do I have tantrums? When have I disturbed you, Diodorus? When did I merit the insult you gave me tonight before my sister’s husband?”
“Oh,” said Diodorus, frowning. He sat down and stared at his bare knees. “I did not know I had insulted you. I ask your pardon, Aurelia. I have had hell’s own headache today.” He waited for Aurelia’s usual words of concern, but she only sniffed, and the coldness on her face became even colder.
“It must be very bad,” Diodorus repeated.
Aurelia began to braid her hair, and Diodorus tried to restrain his impatience. He was hurt that his wife did not commiserate with him, that she did not open her box of unguents to rub on his forehead, that she did not invite him to her bed so that she could hold him in her arms, as usual, and croon to him until he forgot his pain, or it was gone.
“I mean,” said the tribune, irascibly, “that it is bad that a wife shows no solicitude for her husband.” Aurelia sniffed again. The shining black lengths of her hair flowed over her fingers. “Besides,” said Diodorus, in a louder voice, “I swear by all the gods that I do not know how I offended you before that elegant in his toga. Why does he wear a toga in a simple household?”
“He is a gentleman,” Aurelia informed him, pointedly. Diodorus glared at her, and she glared in return. This was so unlike the amiable Aurelia, who had a large and diffused affection for everyone, that Diodorus was taken aback. “So. I am not a gentleman,” he observed.
“You never were.” In spite of herself a dimple appeared in her brown cheek. Then it faded. “What is this about a marriage for Calliope? And to whom?”
“Lucanus,” said Diodorus, and slapped his knee as if it were all settled.
Aurelia’s eyes rounded in astonishment. Her plump hands dropped from her hair and fell on her lap. “Lucanus!” she exclaimed. “The son of Iris?”
“Who else?” asked Diodorus, irritably.
“He has asked for this girl?” said Aurelia, disbelieving.
“No, no! I did not say so. I have decided this myself. Before he marries her, I will free her, and she will be my gift to him. Who is he to protest my orders?”
Aurelia’s mouth opened incredulously. “Have you forgotten that you cannot give him orders to marry a girl you have chosen for him, even if you are a proconsul and a tribune? He is freeborn!” She was more and more incredulous. She had an affection for Lucanus, who was the son of her friend, Iris, and a handsome youth, and Rubria’s fellow student and playmate. But she had thought that Diodorus was a little too enthusiastic about the boy.
“I can give him orders!” shouted Diodorus in a rage. “Who is he, but the son of a weak dog of a former slave, that Aeneas!”
Aurelia paused. Then, watching him closely, she said, “He is also the son of Iris.”
Diodorus started to speak, then was silent. Aurelia went on, “Do not bellow at me. It may surprise you, but I sometimes have headaches of my own, though you seem unaware of headaches which concern others. Let me continue. Lucanus was born free. He is proud. You cannot command that he marry a slave. Nor can you have him flogged or imprisoned for no cause if he disobeys you. I believe you mentioned approvingly that Tiberius himself has issued edicts restraining violence and unlawful commands.”
“Tiberius!” said Diodorus, in a tone which consigned the Emperor to the gutter. “Listen to me: I shall talk with Aeneas and tell him my will. He, at least, will not dare to disobey me. I have said it. I have done.”
He stood up with an air of finality. But Aurelia was not impressed. “Have you considered Iris, whom you are about to offend deeply? I cannot permit this outrage.”
The face of Diodorus swelled with fury at this. “Outrage!” he shouted. “I give the boy a slave to tend him while I pay his huge bills in Alexandria, robbing my own daughter of her dowry — ”
Aurelia put her hands over her ears. When Diodorus stopped, seething, she removed her hands and spoke quietly. “No doubt you are impelled by the highest motives. However, give Lucanus Calliope when he leaves for Alexandria, if you will.”
“I shall,” said Diodorus.
Now curiosity beset Aurelia. “But why?” she asked.
“I have said it. Is that not enough?”
“No,” said Aurelia. She began to braid her hair again. Then she shook her head. “I do not know what is in your mind. Did you know that you are occasionally sinister?”
Diodorus was about to burst out into angry shouts again, when the word caught his attention. Sinister. He had never considered himself so. For some reason the thought intrigued him. He rubbed his forehead sheepishly, and said, in a milder tone, “I have spoken it many times: I am only a simple soldier. My motives are always as pure as a cow’s milk.”
Aurelia looked very knowing, and this pleased Diodorus more. She said, “Even if Calliope were a pearl from Cos, endowed by the very Graces themselves, Lucanus would not have her. Iris told me today, with much concern, that he has taken a sacred vow to the gods that he will never marry.”
“Never marry!” exclaimed Diodorus. “What folly! What impelled him to such foolishness? Do not the girls attract him?”
Aurelia shrugged. “I do not regard Lucanus as a son, as you often do,” she said, significantly. She let that barb throb in Diodorus for a moment. “I am not in his confidence; he is too silent and reserved for so young a man. However, a man does not make a sacred vow to refrain from marriage if he is not attracted to young women.”
This seemed reasonable. Diodorus wrinkled his fierce brows. He was no longer angry. He muttered, “Nonsense.” Aurelia shrugged again. “You have something on your mind,” she said. “And I am very curious.”
Enormous relief flooded Diodorus. He smiled. “If he has taken that vow, then he will not violate it. So. It is ended.”
“I am still curious,” said Aurelia.
Diodorus knew that his wife was not intellectual, and not subtle. But she was shrewd. He also had a great respect for Aurelia. “I am not a man to satisfy a woman’s curiosity,” he said, chaffingly, his headache having miraculously disappeared. “I had thought to do Lucanus a benefit, and that is all.”
“Oh,” said Aurelia, unconvinced. She yawned. She lost interest in the conversation, and she forgot her injured feelings. She glanced at her bed, then smiled at her husband innocently. “You have been overwrought more than usual today, Diodorus. Were the magistrates and tax-gatherers and the nobles and the chieftains exceptionally obnoxious?”
“They were pigs,” said Diodorus, expanding. He had caught his wife’s glance at the bed. His hands began to unfasten his girdle. Aurelia rose, shook down her braids, then bent to blow out the lamp.
When they were in bed, and embracing, Diodorus said, “I have arranged a marriage between our Rubria and your favorite nephew, Piso.” And he laid his head on his wife’s breast, and it was a warmth to his heart and a coolness to his forehead. He enveloped himself almost desperately in her strength and gave himself to the gentle ministrations of her hands. He closed his eyes and willed himself to forget Iris, who had retreated like the moon behind a cloud.
Chapter Nine
In the morning Diodorus awoke in an expansive mood, touched with some regret. Lucanus was only the son of a freedman; nevertheless, Diodorus, who truly loved him as a son, was ashamed of himself. It was that cursed migraine, of course, which had the same effect on a man’s reason as Medusa had on the flesh. What had made him forget that no modest Roman maiden could marry without her father’s consent? It was her young heart that I was probably considering, thought the tribune. I did not want it crushed. As he had loved Iris, so was it possible that the gentle little Rubria would love Lucanus. This made Diodorus more determined than ever to send her and her mother to Rome. In the meantime he concluded th
e arrangements for Rubria’s betrothal at breakfast with Carvilius Ulpian. They haggled over the dowry. The cautious tribune wished to be certain that if Piso ever divorced Rubria, or she decided to leave his house, her dowry would be returned to her. The senator was in good humor, though he had decided to leave this impossibly simple place the next morning.
Keptah, this rosy dawn, was in Rubria’s room for his usual morning examination. He was deeply distressed. The girl had had a recession in her mortal disease which had lasted longer than any case ever recorded by Hippocrates or his disciples. But the signs of its returning were here. The soft mucous membranes of her mouth and throat showed the deadly lumps of the white sickness. One of her knees was swollen and hot, and, overnight, she had lost the color in her cheeks, and her face was ghostly again. She was languid and feverish, but there was one good sign: her spirits were still merry. There could be another recession if internal bleeding did not occur. The physician examined her urine, and made certain inquiries of the nurse. So far all bodily secretions were free of blood. He advised that she remain in bed for a few days.
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